NONVERBAL
COMMUNICATION
“You’d better smile when you say
that, Pilgrim!”
DEFINITION
A process whereby people, through the
intentional or unintentional manipulation of
normative actions and expectations,
express experiences, feelings, and
attitudes in order to relate to and control
themselves, others, and their
environments.
(Hickson & Stacks, 1985)
LINKS [RELATIONSHIPS]BETWEEN
NONVERBAL AND VERBAL
COMMUNICATION
• Complementing
• Conflicting
[contradicting]
• Substituting
• Accenting
NONVERBAL RULES
• Nonverbal communication must be read in
clusters.
• Nonverbal communication is culturespecific.
NONVERBAL CATEGORIES
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Kinesics – body language
Oculesics [ocalics] – use of eyes
Proxemics – use of space
Haptics – touching behavior
Vocalics [paravocalics or paralanguage]
not what you say but HOW you say it
nonverbal categories continued
• Objectics [artifactics] – use of
objects/artifacts
• Chronemics – use of time
• Olfactics – use of smell
• Gustorics – use of taste
kinesics
• Includes gestics, facsics, body synchrony,
attractiveness, height, build
• Speech related gestures may be
– Emblems
– Illustrators
– Regulators
– Affect displays
– adaptors
oculesics
• “The eyes are the windows to the soul.”
• Eye contact is VERY culturally
determined.
proxemics
• Territoriality
• Spacial Distances in America
– Intimate zone (0’ - 18”)
– Personal zone (18” – 4’)
– Social zone (4’-12’)
– Public zone (12’ - ∞)
We say a person’s personal bubble is 3 feet.
That is a diameter of intimate zone.
• Small group ecology
haptics
• Who can you touch?
• When can you touch?
• How can you touch?
vocalics
• The text combines two common names
into one: vocalics and paralanguage =
paravocalics.
• It is all aspects of the voice other than the
words themselves.
objectics
• Communication through the use of
artifacts.
• Communicate
– Marital status
– Economic status
– Social status/membership
– Personality
chronemics
• America is an extremely time conscious
culture
• Latin cultures versus Anglo cultures
olfactics
• A smell can trigger the oldest of memories
• We can remember what we smell longer
than what we see & hear.
• Americans are very smell conscious
• Can even be used as a warning system
gustorics
• Can communicate pleasure, displeasure
or warning
• We can savor flavors we enjoy.
• What one person perceives as mildly spicy
may be hot and displeasureable to another